Jake
Jake woke up with a very chilly cheek. Looking down, he realized that his pillow was covered in a sheet of ice.
"What the heck?!" he yelped, freaking out as he watched mist come out of his mouth. He grabbed the phone and dialed Cassie's number, trying to not freeze the mouthpiece.
Cassie
Cassie jumped as the phone rang. She had been concentrating on feeding and otherwise tending to the animals - trying to get a pill down a racoon's throat is not fun.
Sighing, she pulled off one of her gloves and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
Jake
"Cassie? It's Jake. There is something very strange going on here," he said, trying to wipe the ice off the phone
Cassie
"Jake? You'll have to speak up a bit. I can hardly hear what you're saying," Cassie said. "What strange thing is going on?"
Jake
"Everything is freezing! it's like, ice is coming out of my mouth!" Jake saod, quite upset, as the entire phone froze and disconnected.
Cassie
Cassie stared at the phone as it went dead. She pulled off the other glove and poked her head inside the house.
"Mom? I'm going to Jake's," she called.
Then she stepped outside again and morphed osprey.
Jake
Jake's bedroom was completely covered in a sheet of ice. For some reason, he didn't feel very cold, but he was thoroughly freaked out.
Cassie
Cassie arrived at Jakes house, and not only saw the ice, but made a point of avoiding it. Such cold will kill the thermals and make it rather difficult for her to stay aloft.
<Jake? Jake!>
Then she realised that hey, he couldn't answer back in thought-speak. Duh.
Jake
Jake tried to answer back, but couldn't. "Cassie?!" he yelled out, "Where are you?"
Cassie
Cassie demorphed outside, out of sight. She morphed to cockroach just long enough to get inside (she didn't want to wake anyone), demorphed again and ran upstairs to Jake room.
"Jake?"
She stared at the virtually frozen door.
Jake
Jake was trying not to panic, but it wasn't working very well.
"Cassie? I don't know what's happening. It's like my breath is frozen. Everything is covered in ice!"
Cassie
"Oh wow, okay..." Cassie said, at a loss at what to do.
She thought quickly. This didn't sound like anything alien like - and boy, she had had her share of alien weirdness.
"It doesn't sound like anything alien-related..." she said, trying to ressure him. "Well, unless there's a temperature manipulator playing a prank on you."
But if it wasn't alien, what was it?
And more importantly, how did they stop it?
Jake
"Waitasec," Jake said, trying to chill out. "Ice. . . . . . . That Bobby kid! The one who looks like me! Doesn't he make ice?"
Cassie
Cassie paused.
"He's a mutant, isn't he?" she asked as the thought ticked over. "It could be... You... you could be..."
As if their lives weren't weird enough. Now on top of Andalitle morphing techonology could Jake possibly be...
"A mutant?"
Jake
Jake thought. "I. . . . . .I guess so. But if I am, I should be able to turn it off, right? Um, maybe you should call the X mansion."
Cassie
"Okay," Cassie said. "I'll call them now, be back soon."
Cassie trotted off to the phone, and rang the Mansion. She had no idea who to talk to.
"Hello?"
"Umm, hi, this is Cassie. I'm Rachel's friend? The animorphs? Umm, well, her cousin, Jake... we think he just... Well, his room is like this big block of ice. He's alright and everything, well, y'know except that it's all iced up..."
"Okay, what's the address, Cassie?"
A few minutes later, Cassie returned to Jake.
"They're going to get here soon," Cassie said. "Don't worry, Jake, I'm sure everything is going to be okay."
Jean and Scott
Jean and Scott got in the Blackbird and headed for Philadelphia to the Evans' house.
"Okay, let's try this," Scott said, melting the ice with his optic beams.
Cassie
"Jake?" Cassie called.
She trotted over the growing puddle into Jake's room.
Jean
Jake tried to stop the ice coming from his mouth. IT wasn't working, so he thought back to the sign language course that he and Cassie had taken in high school.
//Can't stop ice// he signed.
"Let me try something," Jean suggested. She slipped into Jake's mind, and showed him how to switch the power off. He tried it.
"I think it worked," she said, slowly, and no new ice came out of his mouth.
"Little victories," Jean said, "We'll work on controlling it later, let's get this mess cleaned up."
Cassie
"Oh thank goodness!" Cassie said.
She wrapped her arms around Jake, giving him a huge hug.
Jean
"THis is INSANE!" he said, quoting Marco. "THis is crazy. I'm not a mutant. I can't be!' Jean looked at Scott, urging him to say something helpful.
Scott
"Well, maybe you are, and maybe you aren't," Scott said firmly. "But if you come with us, our resident doctor, Dr McCoy, can have a look at you and figure out which one it is."
"Jake... they came all this way..." Cassie said.
Jake
"I know, I know," Jake said, frowing, "It's just, with all the crap we've gone through, this too?"
Cassie
Cassie tentatively gave Jake a hug.
"Don't worry," she said firmly. "It'll all work out."
Jake
"All right, lets go," Jake said. And he grabbed some stuff and got dressed.
Scott
Not long thereafter, the four arrived at the Mansion, and Scott escorted Cassie and Jake down to the medlab for Hank's examination of Jake.
Jean
Jean gave Jake a hug and went up to check on Joyce. Hank fiddled about the lab, setting things up. The tests didn't take as long as they would at a hospital, but much longer than Jake would have liked.
"Alright, you're definitely a mutant, and it seems your power is to turn moisture into ice, most specifically the moisture in your breath. You may be able to expand on that. Also, you have no weakness to cold." Hank said. "I should have warned you on this, actually. I long ago detected the X-gene in your cousin, but her hasn't yet mutated."
Cassie
Cassie regarded the blue mutant with ashtonished wide eyes.
"You... you mean Rachel is a mutant too?"
Hank
"Not exactly," Hank said. "She has the possibility of becoming a mutant. hte gene is there, but it hasn't manifested itself yet. Annie will most definitely be half mutant, though, when she gets a bit older. She hasn't manifested any mutant power yet, that we know of, only her alien ones,"
"I don't think Rach's mom will take this well. I hope her little sisters don't mutate," Jake said. "Also, a bit of irony here. Everybody's always saying that Bobby & I look aline, and now we both have an ice power? It's a bit amusing when youthink about it."
Cassie
Cassie shook her head in an effort to comprehend it all.
"Maybe you're really twins separated at birth," she said in a half-hearted attempt to joke.
Jake
"Maybe," Jake said wryly. "So, I don't have to move here, do I?" Jake asked. "We've only one more school year to go and then we're done, and I want to stay with Cassie."
"Well, as long as you learn control, you don't have to more here. You should catch on quickly, though, since you mastered morphing so well." Hank replied.
Cassie
"Good," Cassie smiled.
She gave Jake another hug.